Jinkx Monsoon

Jerick Hoffer, better known by the drag persona Jinkx Monsoon, is an American drag performer, actor and singer best known for winning the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. 2Biography Jerick Hoffer was born in Portland, Oregon, and first performed in drag at age 16 at the all-ages Escape Nightclub. Hoffer was raised Catholic, and discovered Russian-Jewish ancestry on their mother's side at the age of 18. Their drag character, Jinkx, is characterized as Jewish as a way of reconnecting with this part of their heritage. Hoffer also suffers from narcolepsy, a fact that they revealed in the season-five premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race. Hoffer worked as a janitor through college and graduated with a BFA in theater from Cornish College of the Arts in 2010. They have lived in Seattle, Washington since 2006. Hoffer identifies as "non-gendered" or non-binary, and prefers to go by singular they pronouns when not in drag. In an April 2017 interview, Monsoon stated, "I've never identified as fully male. I've always identified as more gender fluid or gender ambiguous, but I never knew the vocabulary to explain it for myself." 2Career After moving to Seattle from Portland, Hoffer and creative partner Nick Sahoyah wrote and starred in multiple Funny or Die webisodes titled Monsoon Season in which they played Jinkx Monsoon as an over-bearing, substance addled, near-psychotic mother to Nick Sahoya's character, Kamikaze Monsoo